Monday, August 20, 2007

A visitor just left my office: Homa Sorouri, an Afghan woman from Herat who is studying international relations as a Fulbright Scholar at the New School University. She just returned from her first visit home in over a year.Homa told me she was tired of the American (and other non-Afghan) students at her university asking her whether she was optimistic or pessimistic or if the glass is half full or half empty. She missed my Pessoptimist blogs because she had no internet access in Herat. When I showed them to her, she proclaimed that she too was a pessoptimist.Here's what she told me. She was shocked at how the situation had deteriorated in Herat. Her parents would not let her leave the house, because it was so unsafe. This had nothing to do with the Taliban or al-Qaida. Her father told her that a man had been murdered in a nearby house. Her brother told her about a robbery. There are three main rumors about the causes of crime: (1) the followers of ousted governor Ismail Khan (the former commander who is now Minister of Energy and Water in Kabul), who burned the UN office (right) in September 2004 when their chief was removed, are staging crimes to show that Herat is not secure without Ismail Khan; (2) because the justice system is so corrupt and there is no rule of law, personal and family disputes frequently escalate into violence; and (3) the police, who have become part of the same criminal network as drug traffickers and smugglers (oil smugglers at Islam Qala on the right), are responsible for most of the crime. These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.

Her father and all of her brothers and sisters are employed, mostly making decent salaries working for international organizations, but they know so many people who are in deep economic difficulties. Her brothers and sisters have made up a list -- apparently a rather long list -- of people they know personally who are in desperate straits. Next to each person's name is a percentage -- that is the percentage of the family's resources those people are given. Every month when their salary arrives, the brothers and sisters pool a portion of their money and give it to their mother, who distributes it to these needy people.

But the most shocking thing was her encounter with a neighbor. This woman, she told me, was beautiful! She was so young and so beautiful, and she had two daughters who were also so beautiful. When Homa saw them on the street in the past, she felt happy. This woman came to visit to ask Homa what she should do. Homa was shocked at how this woman looked. She said she wanted to commit suicide. Her husband had become a heroin addict and had sold one daughter to pay for his drugs. I asked Homa what this meant. The daughter was 13 or 14 years old and very pretty, so the father married her to a rich man for a high brideprice. Now this educated young girl who grew up in Iran is more or less imprisoned in an extended family compound in a rural district of Herat in a "terrible situation." The mother had to work in order to earn money not only to support her family but also to pay for her husband's drug addiction -- but she was afraid to leave the house, because her husband might sell the other daughter as well. Homa's neighbor saw no way out but suicide, which many reports indicate is increasing in Afghan urban areas.

You decide: are you optimistic or pessimistic? Is the glass half full or half empty?

40 comments:

I'm optimistic that the United States will make some major changes to its dealings with Afghanistan within the next 2-3 years. And when Afghanistan starts seeing the human, technical, financial and security resources it needs then I will start being a full optimist again.

As bad as the situation is now I can't imagine the rest of the world, specifically America, allowing Afghanistan to return to the 1990s again.

So I guess that makes me a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist.

It's a very depressing time right now. It's very sad to see Herat like this and it's especially disheartening to see that everything is being blamed on Ismail Khan's people. This is all a result of the Pashtun Taliban and their crimes. I want to be a optimist but so far there isn't any signs for hope with all these word games going on.

Herat was an example of hope,development, and success when Ismael Khan was in Power. The economic situation of Herat was better than now and everyone was happy but since ismael khan got removed and Said hussain Anwari a non herati became the governor of Herat Curroption and crime has been on the rise. The only Alternative for this problem is to bring back ISMAEL KHAN!

I do not think the first hypothesis very clever . it is The Afghan National Part (Afghan Millat ) who are afraid of stable Heart because it is a persian speaking Provience and they wanted to be as Kandhar and Helmand

I do not think the first hypothesis very clever . it is The Afghan National Part (Afghan Millat ) who are afraid of stable Heart because it is a persian speaking Provience and they wanted to be as Kandhar and Helmand.

This was another Controversy done by the ethno-fascist Afghan Millat. Herat is the Symbol of Tajik Culture and Heritage and if Herat is Stable, Tajiks will have economic and political stability. Since Ismael Khan was removed and Herat's situation worsened, The Taliban have entered herat and have influenced alot. They even had a hand in the Shia-Sunni conflicts in Herat. The only target left for Afghan Mellat today is Mazar e Shariff which is another dominant Tajik province with a Powerful commander(Ustad Atta) who doesnt tolerate Pashtunism and Afghan Mellat.

Well, I want to add the fourth hypothesis to the 3 mentioned in the article If any one had past one day in Afghanistan specially untouched with political body he/she should notice that there are strong band in the government who are welling to see unstable HERAT rather than developed one , They even cant hide this and give it the name of balancing or some thing like this.You just can go to HERAT and see the building of Herat University left untouched after Khan was removed from Herat , because they are afraid to see Herat with too much educated people and money industry running . so they armed Zirko Shindandi pro Taliban people and unstable Herat even when Khan was on power. Yes still these four hypotheses are not mutually exclusive and some are synergic.But what ever is behind this instability there is one thing obvious : THIS IS THE SIGNO OF GOVERNMENT FAILURE AND MISMANAGEMENT .

LONG LIVE THE CULTURAL AND LITRATURE CENTER OF AFGHANISTAN“ANCIANT HERAT” I am sure Herat survive this unmoral action as it survived Mongolian invasion.(Changiz Khan)

I think the most precise hypothesis might be the Tribalism Ideology which dominant in the government nowAnd they do not want people get out of this illiteracy and make a decent life so They want to keep Herat at the same level of Helmand and Kandahar

As I have a complete conviction in my heart that Mr. Ismail Khan was performing a great job during his office in Historical Hearat. But, unfortunately there are many atrocities from anti-civilization people (Pashton) on the way and had fulfilled in the past 4 years. We believe in the wisdom power of Ismail Khan and its great people. Please understand the situation well, before jumping on the conclusion.

TO SAVE HERAT FROM THIS ANARCHI IT IS VERY FEASIBLE TO TURN THE POWER TO THE LOCAL PEOPLE AND THE GOV MONITOR THEM , I THINK KHAN WAS NOT WORSE THAN PRESENT RULER SO WHY HE WAS DISMISSED?MAYBE ONE REASON WAS TO BRING THE ANARCHI TO HERAT AND PREVENT IT FROM THAT FAST GROWING ECO AND SOCIL ASPECT.I ALSO WANT TO ADMIT KHAN WAS VERY RELIIOUS AND DRY RULER BUT AT LEAST HE WAS 100 TIMES BETTER THAN NOWIF YOU JUST SEE WHAT HE HAS DONE TO HERAT , THAT IS AMAZING, ONE MIGHTARGUE THAT HE ABUSED AND USED ALL NATIONAL MOMEY THERE , HE/MIGHT BE ROGHT BUT NOW WHERE DOES THAT MONEY GO ? AND WHAT IS THE OUT COME OF SENDING THAT MONEY TO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT?WHO IS ACCOUNTALE? WHERE IS IT SPENT? WHAT IS THE OUT COME?WHICH ROAD OR BRIDGE IS BUILD OUT OF IT?WHICH PROVICE IS SAFER NOW?AND MANY MORE QUESTIONS ARE NOT ANSWERED

We are extremely sad what is going on in Hearat or in the north of Afghanistan.Pashtons are pissing our people off! Long life to Afghanistan.Long life to its National Hero(Ahmad Sha Massoud) and Long life to Amercian and coialation Troops there.

Let ’s be honest to ourselves, why Ismahl khan should ruin where he has been building from scratch ?It is really unfair to think so , he had some negative point politically but no socially , he was good for the city and for the economy and education, we actually need food to live not central government with empty stomach and unsafe house. In that time the tie with central government ( if there is one) was loose but the tie with people was strong and this is a human want , we are human and do not need to comply with regulations which gives us nothing but enforcing Talinanism and gathering tribal leaders to eat our food and jump back to Pakistan and start killing our innocent civilians, this government has given nothing to us, just by presence of ISAF we relatively peace in some part and with UN donation we do not die of a piece of bread , the government is nothing just a burden to the society , it spent almost 70% of Aids Donatied by west and that is what it does and the left over are spent on tribal leaders because they speak Pashto .I am really sorry for this government which wated all international and national resources and the worst scenario we lost the golden chance of peace and rebuilding the country. This government is not the reprehensive of Afghanistanies , it the president just act like the head of a tribe, did you see his Turban tail during that jurga , it was completely Pashto , no sing of president of all Afghanistan people. So if you want to find the best reason why Herat is unstable please do not stick to the hypothesis like above , it is not failure of any one it is a process of destruction of Herat by very known enemy of Dari language and culture in the country. It is easily known from arming of Amanulla Gay in Zirko of Shindand (Sabzawar) to destroy the Herat and make it like the rest of the country.

These comments inspire a brief response. Nearly every comment has blamed the problems in Herat on ethnic factors and specifically on Pashtuns. Homa Sorouri is not a Pashtun, but a Persian-speaking Herati. She just returned from Herat, and she did not mention any ethnic issues when we were discussing Herat. I know that there are serious ethnic conflicts in Herat, but I think that these are the result of and not the cause of these problems. The removal of Ismail Khan is a very important event to analyze, because it raises the question of whether the government is capable of administering the country according to the constitution or whether a more decentralized system of local authorities might be better. There are pluses and minuses on both sides. This is an important discussion. I would request my Afghan friends to conduct this discussion without blaming ethnic groups even when discussing political problems that have an ethnic character.

I agree on Barnett R. Rubin comment, where he says about removal of ismahil khan yes the removal of Ismahil Khan can be used as a kind of political pilot project to see if we continue to central government or a decentralized one. Not only Khan’s removal we also can see Kandhar is worse now than Shirzad was semi independent governor of Kandhar and Jozjan was safer than Dostom was there and when Jomaha Khan Hamdared went there he missed every thing and many innocent civilians were killed.From all above mentioned we can come to a conclusion that in multi ethnic societies like Afghanistan a DECENTRALIZED GOVERNEMT works better than centralized one.

Herat has always been known for its great civilization and culture, its literature and abundance of knowledge. So for Herat to be off-kilter and struggling, suffering, and just plain failing is a great excuse for others to get involved in its affairs. Herat is a predominantly Tajik-filled province with very few pockets of Pashtun settlers here and there. The centralized government (run by Pashtuns) can't possibly know what is best for Herat because they barely know the province. The heart of the matter is that Ismail Khan knew his province and he knew his people well. He knew how to take care of them and he fought to defend them as any normal person would. The destablization of Herat (as described by this article) was caused by Pashtuns so that they in turn can have a reason to continue to infiltrate it. It would be embarrassing for a Tajik province to be doing so well when the southern Pashtun provinces i.e. Kandahar, etc. are doing so poorly. When we stop downplaying the ethnic problems in Afghanistan is when we will finally be on the path of reconstruction.

It is a never-ending circle and it will stay never-ending because no one wants to talk about the foundation of all of these problems. The fact is that it has always been the Pashtuns' policy to place the blame on everyone but themselves. Hamid Karzai and Afghan Mellat are soley to blame for the deterioration of Herat. Ismail Khan has always served Herat. After the Taliban were driven out, he has always worked to reconstruct and rebuild his province. Though he is a religious man and I am not I still prefer him because he knows the needs of the people and the people felt more secure when he was around. The money that was used to rebuilt Herat during his time did not come from the government nor from the western funds, it instead came from the people of Herat themselves. They were investing in their own province and it was helping their economy. Now, however, there are problems and violence and no one wants to invest because it is unstable. Karzai is using the Pashtuns of Sheendan to perfrom their criminal acitivies in Herat and therefore destablizing Herat. And it is true, for Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, it is embarrassing for a Tajik province to succeed while a Pashtun one continuously fails and is bombarded by their own Pashtuns.

It is not fair to blame all the problems of Herat with ethnic issues. Herat is the border city and many refugees ousted from Iran are living below poverty line there. At the same time many drug dealers who smuggling drugs to Iran are building mansions in the city. So the gap between poor and rich is evidently increasing. National police is more corrupt than ever, they are not promoting rule of law but they look after the powerbrokers and they together violate the laws.That is also true that some Pashto extremists can not tolerate a prosperous mainly Tajik city growing in business, literature, reconstruction and number of educated people and many more …But that is not fair to close our eyes to all other factors contributing to the growing insecurity in Herat. We are facing too many problems in Afghanistan. It is not time to fledge an ethnic conflict in the war- ravaged country. Those educated Afghans who are living abroad are responsible to promote National Solidarity and Unity in Afghanistan, not to divide already divided people back in home.

Homa Sorouri’s assessment of the security issue in Herat is very naive. She is not looking at the depths of the problem and is instead focusing only what is apparent on the surface. One should always try to look for and find the root of problems just as some of the posters here are trying to point out. Basically the problems have ethnic roots. Afghanistan is a country of minorities, as everyone should know by now; every single ethnic group in the country is a minority and they don’t intermingle with one another. Kandahar is predominantly Pashtun while Balkh is predominantly Tajik with small pockets of Uzbeks, etc. Kabul is a mixed city and that is a very rare thing in Afghanistan. There is hardly another place like Kabul in Afghanistan. History has shown the fact that Herat was the most progressive region while Ismail Khan was the governor; they were progressing in the fields of education, reconstruction, etc. Now, even in America, a candidate for the governor’s position is a native of the state. In Afghanistan, the ethnic factor is very much important but so is the regional factor. A Tajik from Balkh would have a difficult time running Herat because they are not familiar with the issues of the people and the province. Ismail Khan fought the Soviets from Herat’s base and after the Soviets left, he immediately consumed his time in building schools and roads and improving Herat. While everywhere else there was fighting, only Herat was doing well and was on the road to progress. Then, the Taliban came and brought destruction with them. They closed the schools, oppressed the women, destroyed buildings and roads, etc. After 9-11, when the Taliban regime lost its hold on the country, Ismail Khan’s main agenda for Herat, once more, was reconstruction; he had schools rebuilt, roads and buildings were repaired, and their economy improved and Herat became one of the few areas that did not rely on opium cultivation. I don’t know if Mr. Barnett Rubin is intentionally or unintentionally trying to downplay the ethnic factor. He is one of the few Americans who is familiar with Afghanistan but there are things that even he wouldn’t know – the very same things I am going to point out here in this post. There is a district in Herat named Sheendan and I don’t know if Barnett knows the history of this district. About fifty years ago, the district was not known as Sheendan, it was instead originally named Sabzwar, which is a Persian name, meaning ‘Green Hill.’ Zahir Shah’s pro-Pashtun team changed the Farsi name into the Pashtu translation and renamed the area as ‘Sheendan.’ This switch was to give the new Pashtun settlers a foothold in the area. The land of Sabzwar was basically confiscated and Pashtuns were brought from the South and from the other side of the Durand Line and were re-settled in Sabzwar. There are other areas in Herat as well as other places in Afghanistan where this has happened as well: Balkh, Paghman, and other non-Pashtun provinces that had a Sabzwar yesterday and a Sheendan today. The Pashtuns of Sheendan have never assimilated with the rest of the district, instead they kept their tribal way and refused to modernize. Before, during Sabzwar’s time the land was fertile but now, nothing grows in Sheendan but opium and the crop owners are the Pashtuns. Ninety percent of these Sheendan Pashtuns are illiterate and it is these same Pashtuns who cultivate the opium and who sheltered the Taliban. Granted they are not so high in numbers but they are very effective in use. They were rented by the Taliban and by the central government. During this time, they were willingly used as a tool by the central government. This is where the central government gets involved. Karzai and his interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali under the guidance of Zalmay Khalilzad removed Ismail Khan in order to bring Herat under the central government’s rule. They created a conspiracy which involved the arming of the Pashtuns of Sheendan and thus the destabilization of Herat. Under the leadership of Amanullah (as well as help from the South that was set up by the aforementioned people), the Pashtuns of Sheendan burned schools, killed civilians and basically undid all the security that was set up in Herat, and therefore weakened Ismail Khan’s position. Through these battles, Ismail Khan’s son was killed. The central government pressured Ismail Khan to leave his position and he was then brought to Kabul and given the position of Minister of Energy. Since then, the central government has sent an outsider to act as governor in Herat. The heart of the issue here is that Karzai and the Afghan Mellat, backed by their own agenda, used the Pashtuns at their disposal. But you won’t see the Pashtuns complaining either. These same Pashtuns of Sheendan are the same ones who are involved in drug dealing and cultivating, same ones who helped the Taliban, and the same ones who are now involved with the suicide bombings. They are the main cause of problems in Herat – they are the criminals who rob the civilians, they stop and loot cars, and just create chaos wherever they go. Homa spoke to a woman whose husband was a drug addict – well acknowledge how he became that way and the role that Karzai played in created drug addicted civilians. Karzai and the Afghan Mellat did not want to see Heart progress on its own and especially with Ismail Khan in control. It would have been an embarrassment for them because they virtually had no role in the success that Herat had once been. And there was no gain for them when Herat was improving. No one would have attributed Ismail Khan’s hard work to Karzai or the Pashtun leadership. Everyone knows by now that even though not all Pashtuns are Taliban the fact is that all Taliban are Pashtuns. And everyone knows that all the parties especially in the North are unarmed except for the Pashtun Taliban and their supporters. IF the central government is not involved with the violent degradation of Herat, if they are indeed not responsible for plotting against the people of Herat, then they must disarm the Pashtuns of Sheendan who are virtually acting as a private militia. The only ones to carry arms should be the army and the police of Herat or other provinces. Why allow bandits like the Sheendan pashtuns to roam like ruthless bandits?

perhaps a lot of attention was given to ethnic conflict in the above discussion. while ethnicity is given a big part, perhaps it merits looking deeper into how ethnicity determines who gets what in Afghanistan. even the most claimed objective scholars and diplomats play the ethnic card. if the government is so keen on restoring central gov't as opposed to federalism, then perhaps they should consider a non-pashtun governor in the south and perhaps even a non-pashtun president. it is the policy of the west, played well by its agents of different names/titles, to divide afghanistan according to ethnicity. it is the people who suffer the most, while some people play chess with our future.

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